paul begala, david frum, former adviser to president george w. bush. gentlemen, nice to have you both. david, let's start with you. depending on who you listen to, it's either going great or not going well at all. they're either optimistic or completely pessimistic. which is it? >> i feel about this whole process as a basketball nonfan, i feel about basketball, which is start it 100-100 and play for five minutes to get it over with. but i think we also need to take a step back and realize just how lunatic this whole process is. what the united states does not need right now is either spending cuts or tax increases. what we should be thinking about is how to get growth. instead of the mishandling of the deal in 2011, we have to pretend that we have what is the most urgent thing to do right now is to balance the budget, do it immediately and come up with a ten-year plan in less than a month under the most unfavorable conditions possible using the income tax system which is the last place where we should be looking for revenues. we should be looking for r